


Once Before

by OmegaOkami



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BDSM, Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmegaOkami/pseuds/OmegaOkami
Summary: Harry Potter wasn't always Harry Potter. He doesn't remember who he was before, exactly, but it wasn't Harry Potter. Most of the personal details are gone, or hazy at best. He doesn't remember his name or his family or friends. He doesn't remember what gender he was, or how old he was. What he does remember is information. Information from classes and books and movies. Funnily enough, he remembers the Harry Potter books.Harry doesn't know quite what to do with these memories. Mostly he experiments with magic, with learning how his new ability works, while trying to avoid the wrath of the Dursley's who seem to be much more abusive then he thought they really should be. He tries to forget that he has a role to play, pretends that he isn't the wizarding worlds savior, and that he can have his own life. He revels in his ability to work with the magic he could only enjoy in fantasy books before.At Hogwarts he does his best to follow the script, which, surprisingly, is harder then he would have thought. Little details out of place land his friends in different houses. He's pretty sure he isn't supposed to trust the twinkling headmaster. And why in the world does the Voldy-parasite not match the horcrux in his head?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle/Severus Snape, Snarry - Relationship, Tomarry
Comments: 37
Kudos: 190





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I don't know if anyone else will like this little plot-bunny of mine, but I am rather fond of praise, so . . . give me all the praise if you like it! It's got dark and light elements. The dark is very dark, the light is pretty darn light. I don't know. Hope you enjoy!

“People do get such strange ideas into their heads.”  
“What do you expect ‘Greatest magician of all time’? You brought this on both of us.”  
“I didn’t think one blasted sword would lead to this much chaos! Seriously. Have you heard some of the theories that have sprung up? It’s going to be even worse when this whole mess becomes nothing more than history. I blame you.”  
“Me? You’re the one who thought it would be funny to make a glowy rock and go on about it obviously being a sign from the gods! You started this whole mess!”  
“I was like, ten! You can’t hold that against me!”  
“Oh, and then there was the lake. And that’s not even mentioning the dragon and the sword. Now this latest stunt - you do realize this is going to end up in one of those stories you’re so fond of don’t you?  
“Hey, the castle and the crown were all your idea! As was the whole revolution thing. And YOU’RE the one who roped all those people into it! Life would’ve been normal if you hadn’t done that, and this whole thing would be forgotten. But noooo, you wanted to have fun playing tea-party. Stupid bloody witnesses.”  
“You’re the one who thought it would be fun to add mystery magic water to the drinks. It’s not my fault none of the rest of us had magic to react to the stuff.”  
“They’re never going to drop it. And worse, now the rest of you are doing silly little tricks too! And what’s this garbage about you being immortal now? What did you do to start THAT? I certainly had no part of it.”  
“No, you just age backwards.”  
“How does anyone think that works? I spend way too much effort keeping you and your merry band out of trouble for that to make sense.”  
“Well, congratulations. The merry band will be continuing for a long time to come.” The resulting groan in response to that statement ended in laughter from the man's companion.  
“Oh, don’t worry so much. Not like we’ll be around to have to clean up the results of this particular mess. Someone else will get a chance for a change! At least according to you.”  
“Prat.”  
“Do you think it’s real?”  
“How should I know? Random visions aren't something I normally have to deal with. I’m more the fire and wind showy type.”  
“Not anymore you’re not.”  
“I hate you.”  
“I could just recite it for you if you prefer . . . . maybe we could have it made into a song!”  
“I swear, if you so much as think about it I will tie you to that glowy rock you always complain about and drop you straight in the lake.”  
“Aww, don’t be like that! It’s catchy! There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”  
“In winter.”  
“Fine, fine. I’m sure it’ll take care of itself anyway. The guys certainly aren’t going to let it go.”  
“I’m going to kill all of you.”  
“We love you too. Comeon, stop moping. You can drown your woes in ale on me, alright?”


	2. A Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry performs magic, and learns his name. 
> 
> In case the whole "fanfiction" thing isn't clear, I don't own Harry Potter.

#  A Boy is Born

A black haired boy woke to the sound of a woman yelling, and the basket he was currently residing in being lifted into the air. He blinked, mind a chaotic mess as he tried to sort out what was going on. 

The woman carrying him was griping to someone, complaining about “Lily’s lot going and leaving one of THEM on THEIR doorstep, all willy nilly!” Ah. That would be him he supposed. 

This went on for a while. Eventually the child decided that he was hungry, and since the adults seemed to be in no hurry to stop their conversation, he had better take care of that himself. 

Untangling himself from the blanket he was cocooned in took much more effort than he was really expecting, but he did manage to eventually free himself. He sat up and went to stand on unsteady legs, carefully stepping out of the basket he was in. 

Good lord. Everything in the house was large! How in the word was he supposed to sit on a couch, much less reach a kitchen counter? He scowled, and ignored the confusion trying to push to the forefront on his mind. 

He teetered about the house, eventually finding the kitchen after first encountering the living room, a restroom, and some stairs. Then he searched the kitchen until he found a small step stool, dragging it as quietly as he was able to the fridge. 

Clambering up the steps, he was able to just barely open the door of the fridge, nearly knocking himself over in the process. He couldn’t see the top shelves, much less reach them, but he did spy what looked like a very large string-cheese within reach. 

A shrill shriek from the other room startled him, and he lost his balance, falling backward with his own yelp. He tensed, expecting pain as he hit the ground, and was mildly surprised when it didn’t happen. 

Indeed, as he opened an eye he found himself floating upside down and staring into the horrified face of a thin woman with a similarly thin face. 

It could no longer be denied. He was small. 

The cheese stick floated by his face as though in anti-gravity, and he grasped it halfheartedly. His arms flailed as he attempted to right himself, which failed spectacularly, but he did manage to drop himself back on the ground. 

This seemed to startle the woman, as she was suddenly moving, yelling, and yanking, the cheese from him. He gasped as he was lifted by one arm, dragged into the hallway, and tossed into a cupboard. He flinched back as the door slammed on a vicious “Freak!” And he was plunged into darkness. 

He cradled his arm for a while, the pain eventually lessening to the point where he could think. Things had gotten rather strange, rather quickly. He remembered... school? Yes. School. And work. And lots and LOTS of books. He paused to consider that for a while. Quite a few books on magic, but they were fantasy! Except maybe not if he could do it. Which it seemed he could, since he had found himself floating. Fire was a staple, and he was in the dark. Though, maybe light, just in case something went haywire. Didn’t want to burn the house down! 

Happily distracted, the boy went about attempting to create light. It had just happened before, but surely it couldn’t be that hard to do it again! 

He closed his eyes in concentration, trying to remember what he had done before. There had been adrenaline, and he had wanted to NOT hit the ground, and then he hadn’t. Well, he wanted light now. Adrenaline really SHOULDN’T be necessary, which meant intent was. With that in mind, the boy carefully pictured a ball of light, white, not too bright. In front of closed eyelids it brightened, a kaleidoscope of colors flashing before being interrupted by bright, brilliant, green. 

The child gasped, eyes opening, light flickering into darkness. He had been dying, there had been pain. So much pain. He had died, and had been traveling, and then he had woken to screaming and green, green light. And that had hurt too, and he had allowed black to claim him. 

Whelp. If he got magic out of the deal that was ok. Wherever he had ended up obviously wasn’t ideal, but he had died; he could handle anything after that. 

Determination firmly in mind, the child went back to learning how to make light. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Magic was exhausting. Good lord, but it took a lot of energy! He hasn’t noticed the first time because of the adrenaline, and the second time thanks to the influx of memories, but he definitely noticed the third time, staring at his flickering ball. The draining feeling in the center of his chest was a steady swirl that quickly grew thin. He let the light fade and considered that swirl. He took a moment to close his eyes and focus. For a while that didn’t seem to do much, but after a while the feel of the swirl dissolved into seeing it. 

It was like a galaxy. Magic was spread through his awareness, denser the closer to the center one got. It was all chaotic clouds, unwieldy and bulky. He considered the various magic systems he had read about before dying, trying to decide what the next step ought to be. 

As he thought he noticed stars gently streaming into his little galaxy from..... somewhere. Elsewhere. Maybe the magic he had spent on the light? It was nice that it returned, but it was rather slow, and the light had drained quite a bit. 

Well, if it was like a galaxy, then he needed to increase the density and therefore the gravitational pull to the center. Carefully, the boy prodded the magic, pulling it towards that center point. 

Nothing happened for a great while. Pushing the clouds didn’t do much of anything. They just kinda “pooffed”. He tried pulling, but how do you get a grip on clouds? 

The boy growled in frustration. He needed to get them all to the center damn it! 

Abruptly his point of view changed and his head spun dizzily. Oh, that was very strange. He froze for a moment to regain his bearings, then looked around this new place. Pale rainbow mist swirled about his feet. Feet? Yes, he seemed to be standing actually, which was strange because he was sitting. Experimentally he lifted a hand and watched the pastels move in non-existent air currents. Looking up he saw stars in a blackest black sky. Each star was a different color, a different shade, in infinite variety. 

Still, much too far to be of any use just now. He returned his attention to the cloud on which he stood. It wasn’t very large, all things considered. It looked to be roughly circular, flat, and not much larger than a small yard. It was also barren except for the swirling mists. 

The boy watched for a while, playing with the mist as he did so. It felt a bit strange, like water without any weight. He cupped his hands and gently lifted, mist easily coming along, spilling over the sides of his hands in leisurely waterfalls. 

Carefully he closed his hands and pushed them together. Contrary to his expectations, the mists did not spurt out of every crack. Instead, it condensed, until he had no more than a bead, which he rolled between his fingers curiously. 

Much like the mist, the little bead had no weight. It was iridescent, pearly in its pastels. He could pinch it and it would flatten, roll it and it would elongate. It was like clay! 

He spent some time making beads and adding them together until he had a whole handful of the stuff. He then tried pushing it together like he had the mist, but it was much too hard. He shrugged, and went back to playing with it like clay. 

Before too long he had a palm tree on a little island. Scooping mist as he went, he added a swing bench, and little flowers to the ground around it. He found he didn’t actually have to use his hands to get it to form how he wanted, which was rather helpful as the flowers would have been much too tiny otherwise. 

Finishing up the edges of the little sculpture he flinched as something “clicked”. A moment later the mist around him whirled like water down a drain, only it funneled into his sculpture. 

He dropped it in surprise, the little sculpture rapidly swelling in size. As it grew, different aspects changed slightly. The pale colors separated; the palest brown for the trunk of the tree, the lightest green for the leaves and flower stems. Pastel colors of every hue tinted the petals, and a sphere of true-white speckled with black and grey surrounded the island, an inverse night sky. 

Strangely, the stars were still visible just as clearly as before the sphere existed. The boy pondered that a bit, before shrugging and choking it up to magic. He was actually rather fond of the space. He sat on the swing and tried to figure out what to do next. Or what he had done to start with. 

He was yanked back to reality as light flooded his eyes. He blinked tears back to make out the figure of the thin woman. She was scowling, disgust practically rolling off her in waves. 

“Looks like we’re stuck with you boy. Come on then, I suppose you want to be fed.” She turned sharply and walked off, clearly expecting to be followed. The boy considered ignoring her and going back to his little island, but he WAS hungry now that he thought of it. He never had gotten that cheese earlier. How long had he been in here anyway? 

He pushed himself to his feet and toddled out into the hall. Clanging from the kitchen led him that direction, and he peeked in to see the woman bustling about making something. He wished he could see, but really didn’t want to upset the poor woman again by using magic. 

She caught sight of him and sneered, jerking her head in the direction of a doorway on the other side of the room. He made his way over to find a dining room, which contained a giant man and a squalling child in a high chair. The child seemed to take no notice of him, merely demanding “foo!” At the top of his lungs. The man had a newspaper open, sending fond glances at the screaming infant every so often. 

The boy considered the table for a bit, trying to decide if he could climb onto one of the unoccupied chairs. The seat was about the same height as his head, so it wasn’t impossible. 

He never got the chance to find out as the woman bustled into the room, soothing the child - “Here’s your dinner Dudders, mac and cheese, just how you like!” The man folded his newspaper and set it aside, loudly complimenting the woman on the meal set before him. The boy supposed they must be married, and the squalling child their son. 

Husband and child taken care of, the woman’s face sneered down at him as she pointed to a box in the corner of the room. The boy blinked, but moved in that direction with uncertainty. As soon as he was sat the woman shoved some bread in his hands and a bottle of water rolled to his feet. She didn’t bother acknowledging him after that, sitting with the rest of her family at the table. 

The boy ate his bread and drank his water. He obviously wasn’t wanted here, and he wondered what had happened to force this family to take him in. It must suck to be stuck with an extra, unwanted child. How old was he anyway? Three or four maybe? It didn’t really matter he supposed. 

He finished long before the rest of the family. He got up quietly to use the bathroom he had found before, somewhat surprised to find he was wearing a diaper. Well, THAT wouldn’t be needed, but he didn’t have any underwear, so it would just have to do for now. 

Returning to the dining room he was almost immediately hustled back out by the woman and shoved back in the cupboard, along with the basket and blanket he had been in earlier. 

It.... really wasn't a suitable living quarters. It was dark and cramped and hard. He sighed, and spread the blanket to make a makeshift mattress. At least it was warm enough in the house. 

Settled, the boy closed his eyes and tried to find his little island. 

It wasn’t hard at all. Right in the very center of the galaxy sat the sphere of white, stars slowly making their way closer. When one touched, the color in the stars bled to white and joined the sphere, while the majority of the object passed through unhindered. 

Dropping into his island space, the boy saw the objects break into lazy rivers and settle around the island in the space created by the sphere around the island. Much like the island it was palest pale, but unlike the island it was translucent, liquid crystal. 

There wasn’t much yet. A thin film around the edge of one bank really, not even a bare handful. It didn’t move much, for all that it seemed liquid in its movements. It didn’t spread or dilute in the space. The boy gently scooped the handful like he had the mist originally, and found that it, too, compressed. Solid, the star energy obeyed his every whim, and he sent the little bead spinning about the island and back. 

More stars entered his sphere, and he added them to his bead. Eventually he figured out he didn’t have to actually hold the liquid to condense it, concentrating on it seemed to do the trick. That figured out, he let the original bead settle back on the bank and sat on his swing watching stars join and then adding them to his bead. 

Eventually that grew boring, the process nearly automatic. He wasn’t sure how long he had been in that space, and he really had wanted to play with magic. The boy frowned and clarified for himself - in the real world. This was fun and all, but had no practical application. Now, how to leave? 

Willing didn’t seem to work. He wasn’t entirely sure where to will himself to go. He didn’t think he was asleep, so he couldn’t “wake up.” There was no handy door to walk through or rope to climb. Finally, exasperated, the boy stepped off the edge of his island and fell through the white shell, leaving him back in his galaxy. 

Here he paused his quest to escape. The stars were much denser than before, though no quicker. The spiral shape was much more pronounced, and somehow as spherical as the white around his island. How a spiral could be a sphere he had no idea, but there it was. 

Opening his eyes into reality was much easier from the galaxy space than it had been from his island. Dark greeted him, and he sat, stiff from laying in one position. Now to see if that had done anything for his ability to sustain magic. The house was quiet, so he assumed the family was asleep. He called to the magic he had used before and was quite surprised to find that the clear energy he had been collecting jumped to his bidding. It felt.... different, more malleable than it had been before. A different texture maybe? That made since, since before he had been drawing in the mist, which was opaque, and now he was using the liquid-turned-solid. 

Mystery solved for now, he focused back on what he had. Somehow the magic seemed impatient to be used, like a dog that wanted to play. He focused on his light, and let the magic flow. 

He winced and immediately cut off the flow to blink tears out of his eyes. That had felt a lot like running head first into a brick wall.

Trying again, he separated out a single bead from the small pool forming. Bringing it to the center of his focus, he concentrated on making a small light, just enough to see by. A thread seemed to unwind from the bead, meandering itself to the spherical barrier and stopping. Well. That would explain the brick wall. 

He frowned. He had more magic now, but no way to use it. He really didn’t want to try and poke a hole in his sphere. He needed a way to bypass it entirely. 

The crystal magic did not seem to be able to do anything about it. He could form it into the door he pictured, but it collapsed if he didn’t focus on it. He huffed in frustration and abandoned his efforts on that front, just increasing how much he had. Instead he tried to mold some of the pearl magic, since that had actually held its shape. The problem with that was that it held its shape - it didn’t want to change into something else. 

It was several weeks of little food and being locked in the dark before he noticed the barest hint of mist forming at the edges of his island where it connected with the clear magic. He perked up considerably at that and collected the mist carefully. Getting enough for what he wanted took months - the collection process was ridiculously slow. But eventually he had the clay he wanted, and enough mist to power his creation. 

Carefully he sculpted seven pillars, spacing them in a circular shape on a disk. Then he formed fences, delicate things covered in runes, along six of the sides. The last side was given two sheets of rippling cloth hanging from a bar across the two pillars. Last he created a dome roof, finishing up a gazebo. 

Like last time, the sculpture sucked in the mist floating in the area and expanded. The body shaded violet with gold for the runes and roof, the floor was as pale lilac as the fences. The door bled all color out, exactly like his barrier. This one though he could close tight or open as he wished. 

He stepped through the door and was awake. He grinned, beyond pleased with himself. Now he ought to be able to use his magic! 

Drawing from his pool he was mildly surprised to find that it flowed through a window instead of his door. He didn’t think on it long before getting distracted by the dancing light in his hand. 

Excellent. Now to fix the problem of not being fed. 

The boy directed his magic at the lock on his space. It clicked open, and he pushed the door open slowly. The house was dark, the rest of the occupants asleep, or so he assumed. 

He made his way to the fridge, again using the stool to open it. He collected two slices of bread, cheese, and ham from that night's dinner. Sandwich created he sat on his stool and ate, pleased when the ever-present hunger abated. 

He had nearly finished when the light of the kitchen clicked on, and he looked up to see both adults standing in the entry. The woman seemed horrified - the man furious. 

“What do you think you are doing Freak? Stealing from honest folks? We’re good enough to take you into our home, put a roof over your head, food in your belly, and you thank us by STEALING?” The woman was screeching and the boy flinched, not at all sure why she was so angry. 

The man stormed over and yanked the last few bites of his sandwich out of his hands and threw it in the trash. “Don’t bother Petunia dear, boys ears are on their backs.” The boy tensed, no longer confused, and quite sure he did not want any part of this. He tried to run for the other doorway, caught almost immediately by the large man. 

That was the first time he was beaten, but it was far from the last. Floodgates opened, the whale of a man took the slightest infraction as an excuse to “teach you your place boy!” As their child grew he followed his father's example, finding great pleasure in knocking the boy over on the few occasions he wasn’t locked in his cupboard. 

Eventually the chores started - picking up after the obese dudders, dusting, weeding the yard. The number of tasks increased as he grew, dinner withheld if he didn’t complete them in time. 

It was while cleaning the bathroom one day that he broke. He hadn’t paid much attention to his life, finding the magic much better to focus on. Escapism had always been his method of dealing with what he didn’t like, even before he died. 

But it was hard to ignore brilliant green eyes, messy black hair, and a lightning bolt scar. 

His heart squeezed. He’d planned ..... when he was a little bigger he could leave, find help. Child abuse wasn’t accepted after all. But he wasn’t himself. He had to stay here.

A hysterical giggle left his mouth, almost immediately squashed before one of the Dursley’s could hear. That’s where he was. The Dursley’s, number 4 privet drive. 

And he was Harry Potter. 


	3. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.

Harry did his best to keep his head down. He ceased all magic that might be caught, mostly working on his little island, expanding it as mist formed. He learned to manipulate the island, keeping its shape but also having the movement of life, of growth. Little butterflies flitted about, and the swing moved to the slightest wind. The tree had a coconut - a strange, fractured-glass blood orb, and definitively not under his control in any way. He formed a smaller barrier, like his main sphere, around the thing, not wanting to touch it with his magic. 

He never did go to school, instead kept at home with excuses of “not very bright, we have to be more 1 x 1 with him, homeschooling you know.” He bristled every time, knowing that he was not only plenty intelligent, but had a head start thanks to dying. Not that it mattered, and not that he’d dare say anything. 

He took to sneaking out at night. Not for more than an hour or two, since being exhausted the next day would end poorly for him, but having the time to himself kept him sane. When winter hit he learned how to keep himself warm with magic, and how to keep cool in summer. 

When food began being withheld for more than a meal or two at a time he set to figuring out how to provide his own. He remembered conjuration not being an option - something about food made from magic not having any nutritional value maybe? In the end he decided that he needed a garden, one that would always provide food, and one that he couldn’t be kept from. 

Extended space seemed like the most obvious solution. There were several problems with actually doing so however. First, he needed something to expand. It needed to be small enough to be easily carried around and not noticed by his relatives. Second, he needed to learn how to actually create the extended space. Third, he needed a way for the extended space to be linked to the outside world so he could provide sunlight for his garden, as well as air. Fourth, he needed to find a way to get the seeds to start his garden. Last, he needed a way to enter the space - if it was small enough to carry around and hide, it was going to be too small to just walk into it. 

The first problem was simple enough. On one of his nightly escapes from his cupboard he nicked a knife from the kitchen long enough to whittle a ring out of a piece of wood. He made sure to choose a piece of wood that was close enough to his skin color to be mostly unnoticed with a layer of illusion over top.Really, he probably should have chosen a bag or something, but rings with storage abilities were common enough magical items that it ought to work, right?

Seeds were also fairly easy to acquire. Petunia had him tending the yard, and neighbors noticed. The few chances he had to talk to them, he would natter on about how much fun it was to watch the plants grow, but he surely did wish aunt Petunia would let him have some vegetable seeds. It didn’t take long for them to stop by to drop off their unused seeds, and even a few unopened packets from Mrs. Periwinkle down the way. His carefully hoarded stash contained tomatoes, leeks, broccoli, carrots, peppers, zucchini, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries, green beans, and snap peas. He also nicked a couple of potatoes, an onion, and a garlic clove from the kitchen, figuring they wouldn’t be missed too bad. 

By the time he was able to figure out how to actually expand his ring he was well past age six and creeping up on being seven. He was lucky to get food once a week, and probably would have starved if he hadn’t been able to escape his cupboard to carefully steal leftovers or snacks that wouldn’t be missed. 

The key to getting the magic to stick to the ring was to use internal magic, the mist-turned-clay, instead of trying to use the external magic. He had tried doing so before of course, but could never figure out how to get it to leave him. It would snap back any time he forced it out into the world, leaving him with a headache and nothing to show for it. 

Internal magic could be linked to blood though. Finding out that little tidbit was an accident, though it really should have been obvious in hindsight. As usual, he’d had various bruises from Vernon and Dudley, but he’d also had a painful cut from Petunia jostling him while he held a knife to make dinner. It had still been bleeding sluggishly when he was banished to his cupboard for the evening, and when his normally fruitless attempts to add magic to the little wooden ring finally bore fruit it had taken him several moments longer to realize that blood had soaked into the wood. 

The blood itself wasn’t enough to accomplish his goals, but it did work as a catalyst. When he attached magic to the ring after that point it no longer snapped back. A thread became a cord, which became a rope. It didn’t take long until the ring was fairly vibrating with power. That wasn’t enough of course - next he needed to bend that power to his purpose. 

That required weaving the external magic into the ring as well, with intent. To that end he had 5 cords of magic. Three of them he used as point of reference, markers for length, width, and height. The fourth he connected to time. That was tricky to figure out, but in the end decided to make it a spiral much like the galaxy of magic he had originally worked with all those years ago. He couldn’t say why he did it that way, but it did seem to work.

The last cord of magic he used as a lever, or perhaps like a spring. When he spun the ring it would expand, opening a door to access the space about six feet squared. The first time he stepped through the door he decided it was less like the expanded space he had been attempting to make, and more like a completely separate dimension. He had to create light to see by, and examined the space carefully. 

It was maybe an acre of space. Larger than he had been expecting certainly, especially on a first try. The edges seemed to just not exist - one moment there was flat ground, the next there was nothing, like a wall of empty space. He couldn’t reach past that wall either, which seemed a bit strange. The ground itself was wood - he assumed that came from his use of the wooden ring. Whether it was using the ring itself, or had used magic to create the appearance of wood he didn’t know. 

He could set the entrance wherever he liked, which was useful since he would need to fill the area with several feet of dirt. He frowned when he realized that and updated his mental list of problems; how to get dirt in here to actually grow the plants. He wasn’t sure how to acquire nearly enough without someone going ballistic over missing ground. It would be nice if he could just make it himself. 

To solve the dirt problem he ended up just multiplying a handful. As he couldn’t figure out how to replicate the patterns and textures of the dirt itself, he instead pulled the magic into a looser weave and flooded it with additional power. The magic itself handled filling out the details properly - and wasn’t that interesting? It took quite a bit of magic to accomplish, and it was his birthday when he finally had enough to actually begin planting. 

Magic fixed the problem of light and water and air. Air seemed to exist in the space naturally. water he multiplied much like the dirt. Then he just used magic to mimic the light of the sun. Maintaining the light spell was a significant drain on his external reserves, easily cutting down his available magic to a third of what he had managed to accumulate, but it was well worth it, and the space itself didn’t drain magic from him. 

He had expected it to take months for the plants to start producing any noticeable yield, and was pleasantly surprised when he had his first harvest of lettuce only a month or so after planting. He shrugged and choked it up to a pest-free environment that had regular sunlight that didn’t burn the plants and water that was always there when the ground needed it. 

That year he rapidly began to put on weight, recovering from the previous six years of neglect and near-starvation. He was still skinny, and didn’t have as muscle as he would prefer, but no longer were his ribs showing. He had more energy, and was able to cease risking severe beatings for stealing food when he wasn’t fed. 

The downside to having food available and gaining a bit of weight was the fact that the Dursleys assumed that he was stealing, or being “freaky”. Either way they weren’t happy, and the violence levels in the house jumped another notch. Petunia took to cuffing him with whatever object was at hand if he wasn’t exactly where she expected him to be and doing exactly what she told him to. Vernon switched from merely punching him to taking a cane or his belt to Harry’s back. And Dudley had come up with the game “Harry Hunting” which he delightedly convinced his friends to play. This last one often caused interruptions in his chores, which meant he caught twice the ire of Petunia and Vernon for not finishing. 

Around the time of his eighth birthday he came up with the brilliant idea to enhance his physical body with magic. He already had blood, so he figured it wouldn’t be too hard to anchor internal magic to himself. A little extra durability would go a long way towards not being completely miserable until he was able to escape to Hogwarts. 

His theory was correct - it was easy to anchor the magic to himself. He had decided to start with his head, deciding that concussions and brain damage were not things he wanted to be trying to compensate for in the long-run. What his theory did not take into account was how magic fusing to nerves and vessels actually felt. 

He hadn’t noticed at first, merely coating each cell with a layer of magic to start with. It was a bit uncomfortable, like a low electrical current running through his head, but nothing worrisome. When he started to sink the magic in, to irrevocably link them together the burning started. His entire world was agony, painful enough he couldn’t even draw in the breath to scream. He couldn’t pull the magic back either, anchored as it was. It took long minutes on the edge of blacking out to complete the process, at which point the pain subsided and he fell into darkness.

Several days he spent flickering in and out of consciousness as he developed a fever. Petunia had tried to drag him out to do chores the first day, and was quite disgusted with him when he passed out before making it to the kitchen. He was left alone in his cupboard after that, awareness barely there. 

When the fever broke it was the middle of the night. Harry had crept to the restroom to clean off the worst of the sweat and tears from his little episode, as well as grab some water to rehydrate. He felt much too shaky and unstable to want to try touching magic again. 

Mostly clean and throat much less parched he had glanced into the mirror to see the toll it had taken on his carefully gained weight. His skin was pale and clammy, and he had circles under his eyes from the lack of restful sleep. He didn’t seem too much worse for wear weight wise, but he did have a rather large problem. His eyes were no longer green.

Where before his eyes had been striking, but mostly normal in appearance, they were now swirling the same way as his internal magic. While he still had pupils and whites, the irises were in no way going to be able to pass as anything but magical. They swirled in pale rainbows, never the same shades or patterns. Harry groaned and let his head fall to the counter with a thud. 

How was he supposed to deal with this new development? He couldn’t very well let anybody see him like this. Never mind his relatives freaking out over it and possibly killing him, normal muggles seeing it was going to land him locked up and experimented on. And he didn’t even want to know what the effect would be in the magical world - he was going to have a hard enough time trying to stay under the radar just being Harry, never mind having obvious freaky features. 

He rubbed his eyes as he thought. An illusion would work well enough for the short term, but he’d probably have to figure out something a little less faliable before he turned eleven. He sighed and worked on pulling external magic out to film over the strange colors that were now his eyes. Next time he glanced up in the mirror he was satisfied to see eyes that were green, if just a little too bright.

He was most certainly not going to try and enhance anything else for the foreseeable future. That had been much too painful and the unforeseen consequences could have ended much too poorly to be worth risking again. 

There were two upsides to his little experiment though. The first, his brain was not only much more damage resistant, it also functioned better. He went from having an excellent memory to having a photographic memory. Anything from the past was remembered the same as always, but new memories he made were always clear and accurate. He also needed much less sleep to recuperate. Three or four hours a night was plenty for him to thrive on, and he could function on as little as two. 

The second positive outcome of his little experiment wasn’t obvious right away. He kept his glamour up almost constantly, afraid that he’d be caught by his relatives if he didn’t. It wasn’t until after he realized how little sleep he needed and he resumed his nightly forays around the neighborhood that he felt safe enough to let the constant illusion abate for a little while. He had stopped and gaped at the world around him when he did so. 

There was magic, everywhere. Most of it was dull, or maybe thin. It wasn’t like looking at a world of light or anything dramatic like that. But everything, every wisp of hair, every blade of grass, had magic. External magic drifted about, clear as stained glass. Internal magic sat linked to whatever entity it represented. When the two met, free floating internal magic mist would spark off. That would then be either absorbed by an already existing entity, create a new entity all together, or disperse and eventually drain of it’s internal property and become external magic. 

Harry found this cycle absolutely fascinating. Inanimate objects were barely there, hardly noticeable unless he was specifically looking for them. External magic seemed to ignore them entirely, and internal magic was only strong enough to designate it as existing. Plants had a mild gravitational effect, and internal magic would be drawn in to spark against the external magic and create more. The more magic the plant collected, the larger and healthier the plant was. 

Animals were more complex still. Where the external magic of plants and inanimate objects was mist, all but the youngest animals were solid. Even insects fit into that category to Harry's surprise. While they were maturing the mist would slowly condense until it was solid, at which point the animal in question was effectively an adult. 

He wanted to study humans, to see if their magic was different still, but didn’t dare drop his illusion where anyone might see during the day, and at night when he could hide and be sure not to be seen everyone was safely tucked away in their homes where he couldn’t examine them. 

He was also amused to find that his ring-space had a barrier over the door, much like his own magic-space barrier. It kept any magic generated in his little garden in the garden. Plants grew faster and healthier because there was more magic available for them to use to grow. The longer the space existed, the denser the magic became. The month-long harvest time gradually decreased, until he was able to produce enough food that he couldn’t eat it all himself. 

His next project was to create a ring space that was in statis. He didn’t want time to move, didn’t want the magic in the vegetables to be lost and for their beautiful life to drift away into inanimation. This was fairly easy after creating his original garden though - he just removed the cord of magic that he had used to designate “time” before. There was no movement of magic, so nothing inside changed. Soon he had a nice little warehouse to store all his extra vegetables.

On Sundays in late summer he would sneak out to the park for a while, where a small farmers market was held. Nice Mrs. Periwinkle had seen him that very first day and he’d told her how excited he was about his garden, and thanked her kindly for the seeds. She patted him on the head and told him he was a good boy, and that he was welcome to use her booth to sell anything he grew if he wanted to make a little pocket money. 

Harry didn’t dare sell too much, as it would be hard to explain where he was getting more than a small garden's worth of produce from, but he still managed to start a decent savings. His vegetables were always fresh, and the extra magic meant they were always delicious. The strawberries were sweet, the vegetables crisp. Every sunday he sold anything he brought. It didn’t take him long to earn enough to be able to afford to buy some chickens. That had been a bit of a task trying to convince the owner of the feed store that his parents had said he could pick out some chicks to raise as long as he took care of them. 

A third ring and he had a nice little flock of a dozen chicks. The most expensive part of the whole situation was getting them a coop to lay in, which had cost nearly 300$. He made sure to plant wheat and barley, and introduced a selection of harmless insects to the space for protein and calcium. 

The year he turned 10 he added eggs to his farmers market selection. By his birthday he had a decent stash of emergency funds secreted away, and had been able to truely correct the deficit of nutrition in his diet. He fell into the routine easily, ignoring the steadily increasing damage done by his relatives whenever he came home on sunday afternoons. 

The spring before he turned eleven ignoring the injuries no longer worked. Vernon was breaking skin almost every night, and Dudley had broken several bones when he managed to catch Harry during a game of Harry Hunting. He did the bare minimum to keep his garden alive, and then just escaped to the park at night to pretend he was a normal boy, not a freak with magic, not Harry Potter, not some strange being who had died and then become someone else. 

As the days got warmer another person started showing up. At first, Harry had panicked and run home to hide in his garden. His curiosity got the best of him quickly, and he decided that it might very well be his only chance to study the magic of a human, to see if it differed from the magic of animals. 

Giddy with excitement, Harry climbed a tree and tucked himself as close to the trunk as he could. The figure was an adult, likely a man based on how tall he was. Harry had to squint a bit to make him out, as he seemed to have a fondness for dressing entirely in black. Even from a distance it was obvious he was extremely fair-skinned though. 

Initial observations made, Harry let his glamour fall from his eyes. It took a minute to adjust, and another minute to pick out the magic of the man. 

Unlike the ambient magic of the everyday world, the magic of this man fairly glowed. It was a tightly woven shield, much like Harry's own barrier. Only, this man's magic was blackest black with whitest-white and silver stars. It was beautiful, and Harry wished he could see the island that belonged to such serene magic. 

Harry watched the magic until the man was practically below his tree, at which point he brought his illusion back up and made sure to stay very still. The Man of Stars was frowning, and seemed almost to be looking for something. He paced the area for a while before giving up and continuing around the park and away. As soon as the man was out of sight Harry climbed down and made his way home to think and savor the memory of the magic. 

He found himself drawn to the park every day after that. As soon as his chores were done he took off to pick a tree. The man was as consistent as clockwork, and always followed the same pattern. Approach the park, wander towards whatever tree Harry was hiding in that night, pace for a while and then leave. Harry stopped bothering to hide his eyes after a while, not wanting to stop looking at the magic of the man. 

Harry came to the conclusion that the man must be a wizard after a while. Once he stopped focusing quite so intensely on his aura he noticed a line of magic along his arm of different colors - a earthy wood, plus some sort of animal. Both were far denser than anything he had seen even if the pattern of internal and external magic was the same as their respective types. 

When Dudley’s birthday rolled around Harry wasn’t able to escape until far later than normal, having to constantly pick up after the bully of a boy and his gang of friends. For some reason the zoo trip wasn’t a thing, which seemed odd, but Harry was too busy to dwell on it. It took him over an hour to get the chocolate cake Dudley had smeared into the couch to not stain. So he was mostly sure he had missed the man entirely when he did finally manage to get away to visit the park. 

The trees were still. Harry debated climbing one, but figured he was late enough that if the man wasn’t walking the park then he was already gone. Instead he picked his way through the trees to find a bench to sit on. He’d nearly reached one tucked under a large maple when a hand reached out to grab his shoulder.

Harry yelped and spun, stumbling backwards. The hand slid from his shoulder to his wrist, grip too tight to escape but loose enough not to hurt. His eyes rose to meet quietly contemplating dark eyes. An eyebrow rose and Harry paled when he realised he had forgotten to raise his illusion back up, immediately dropping his gaze and redoubling his efforts to free his arm. 

The man let him struggle for a good 10 minutes before Harry gave up and just stood, trembling. At that point he crouched, catching Harry’s gaze. “Is there a reason you are at the park so late at night?” The tone was quiet, and carefully devoid of inflection. 

“I like it when there aren’t people around.” 

The man hummed. “Have your parents not told you it is dangerous to be out alone, especially after dark?” Harry shook his head. The man contemplated him some more, and Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. “Do you want to show me where you are hurt?” 

Harry jerked his head up and resumed attempting to break away. The grip on his wrist tightened, making Harry hiss. A moment later he dashed forward instead of trying to go backwards which did the trick of startling the man who was pushed off balance from his position. Harry immediately yanked backwards, but the man hadn’t loosened his grip for all that he was now sitting instead of crouching. A tug and his other wrist was caught, effectively halting his escape attempts. 

“I’m fine.” Harry muttered belligerently when it became apparent the man was still waiting for an answer to his original question. He thought he heard a quiet snort of disbelief, but couldn’t be sure. 

“All right.” Still that annoyingly even tone. “Can you tell me your name?” Another head shake. “I am going to pick something then, ok?” Surprise flashed across Harry’s face, but he relaxed slightly and nodded. It was several minutes of the two just sitting there before the man nodded and spoke again. “Faen.”

Harry frowned. “Feign?” 

“Faen. Of the fae.” There was a brief pause and then a clarification. “Fairies.” 

Harry nodded. “I know what Fae means.” He thought about it for a while while the man waited patiently. Fae. Of another world, of magic. And it sounded like feign, and faint. Pretend, not all the way there. He nodded again. “Faen.”

A flicker of a smile on the man's face. “All right Faen. Will you run if I let you go?” Faen considered for a moment and then shrugged.

“Probably.” This time there was definitely a snort of amusement, which Faen returned with a faint smile.

“Are you at least planning on coming back? I can bring sandwiches.” Faens' smile widened. 

“Ok.” The man nodded and released his wrists. Faen took a couple of careful steps back, and when the man made no move to follow he turned and disappeared into the trees. 

He made sure to head at an angle, slipping into an ally after several blocks to give himself a once over. The advantage to being able to see magic - the black tracking charm stuck to the underside of his right wrist was glaringly obvious against his own white magic. He snorted and leaned against the wall to study the spellwork. 

Damn. This thing was beautiful. It was definitely the man's magic - the black overlay proved that well enough. It wasn’t internal magic, just external magic that was flavored a bit. More than that though, it was woven with fine threads, not the brute-force method Harry had been mostly using. The spell was tiny, and there was hardly any power in it. If Harry had tried to do such a thing, it would have burned out in a matter of minutes unless he kept it tied to his reservoir. This seemed to be mostly self contained though.

The magic itself was nearly still, very little loss. When ambient magic brushed against it it would absorb a small portion and send off a burst of a signal. He could super-charge and burst the thing easily enough though, which is exactly what he did, right after pulling up an illusion to cover not only his eyes, but the whole of him, fading into the brick of the ally. 

A pop at the end of the ally belied the man's arrival at the destruction of his spell. He stalked in the direction he last got a signal, passing Harry while muttering under his breath. When he vanished out the other side Harry carefully backed out and made his way home. 


	4. Yer a Wizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things might be a bit wonky after this point. I've got the general idea of how I want this to go set, but some of the specifics still need to be ironed out. I'm trying not to make a god-Harry, and I'm trying to make everything fit together, but detail are probably not going to match up as I post before aligning things properly. 
> 
> With that in mind; if you don't want to deal with me tweaking things constantly, I 100% understand and I hope to see you after I am done. If you choose to stick around, please be gentle with me, but don't be afraid to point things out; I can only re-read the same chapter so many times before I stop picking up on oddities. 
> 
> I'll try to keep posting chapters as I go, but there may be breaks as I revise or work on something else. I'll try not to take more than a couple of weeks.

Faen did go back to the park the next night, though he was much more careful to look for the man. He spotted him sitting on the same bench he had been attempting to reach the night before, an unassuming brown bag next to him. Faen carefully set down his own basket of strawberries next to it, drawing the man's attention. 

“Good evening Stars” a raised eyebrow. 

“Stars?” Faen gave an awkward shrug. 

“Mhmm.I figured you gave me a nickname, I should try and give you one.” That garnered a snort of amusement.

“I see. And you brought strawberries.”

“I did. Grew them myself.” Stars reached out to grab one of the berries, both eyebrows shooting up when he bit it. 

“This is very good.”

“Thanks.” Faen blushed and shifted his feet in uncertainty while the man watched him. 

“Will you let me see your injuries tonight?” Faen shrugged dismissively. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.” Faen flinched and stared at him, earning himself a rather wry smirk. “I have a very good sense of smell. You can stay out of reach. I just want to make sure you don’t need medical attention.” Faen eyed him for a few more moments, but eventually shrugged out of his shirt. 

The wounds this evening weren’t too bad. Only a couple of strikes had broken skin, Vernon easily distracted by dinner and then the TV. Dudley hadn’t caught him in a few days either, and his older wounds had mostly healed. He had a few bruises that were starting to darken, and all of the damage was limited to his back. 

He turned slowly so his back faced the man. He could hear him stand and tensed, but otherwise remained still. He felt the man pause long enough to give him time to turn or run if he wanted to, and then very gentle fingers running over the damage to determine the extent. 

“I am going to put something on these to help them close and keep from getting infected, ok?” Faen nodded at the soft question. Stars removed his hands for a moment, followed by the sound of a cork leaving a bottle. A moment later Faen shivered as the potion was carefully spread across each wound, hissing a bit at the mild sting. It didn’t take long, and then the man was stepping back, and Faen was turning to face him. 

“Thanks. You don’t need to worry about it though. I heal fast.” 

“It is no trouble. You will heal faster with proper care.”

“Maybe, but you don’t need to.”

“I do not.” Surprise flitted across Faens face at the agreement. “But I would like to anyway.” A moment of hesitation, and then the boy nodded. “Would you like a sandwich now?” Faen joined him on the bench and the two ate quietly for a while. Eventually Faen gave into the urge to study the magic now that he was closer. 

Up close, Faen could see that the black had clear layers over top of it. The topmost layer seemed to be acting as a filter, much like his barrier did, but only passing it through the very first layer. Then the magic got trapped between the filter and an odd layer of internal-external sparks, that just sort of spun together. When additional internal magic formed it was shunted through the barrier and out of Faens sight. When additional external magic was formed it got pushed to the outer layer. It was interesting, like he was his own self-contained generator. 

He could feel the man's scrutiny as he watched the magic. He knew the man wanted to push. Obviously he had made conclusions about Faens home life, and wasn’t happy about it, but also knew enough not to try and force the situation. Faen idly acknowledged that it was probably just as well the man had seen him without his illusion up - a wizard very well might have pieced together his identity if the green eyes of the Boy-Who-Lived stared up at them. He also kept his hair longer than he was supposed to, which had the effect of straightening the curls and making the mop a bit less unruly, and covered his scar better than short hair would.

The sandwiches were gone before too much longer and Faen stood to leave. The man didn’t seem inclined to stand, so Faen gave a quick thanks for the food and wandered off. As soon as he was out of sight he made his way the exact opposite direction from the day before, repeating the process of overloading the tracking spell before heading home. 

They continued a similar routine over the next few weeks. Stars seemed to grow frustrated with having his tracking spells destroyed and started trying to trail him directly. Faen led him on a merry chase before ditching him not a block from their starting point. Stars had been in a cross mood the next night, but did an excellent job hiding it except for a brief glare in the direction of the spot in question. Some nights the man would insist on Faen showing him his injuries.

Two days before his birthday, the letter arrived. 

Harry stared at the bright red thing in a moment of confusion before remembering that it was his Hogwarts letter. He winced, knowing that there wasn’t a way to hide it before his Uncle caught sight of the thing, and also knowing that the letter was going to cause the man's temper to be even shorter than normal. 

He wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t bothered to try and keep the letter, just handing it along with the rest of the pile to the red-faced man. Harry also knew the second he recognized it, because Petunia made a startled noise and sent him to his cupboard instead of assigning him chores. 

There was the sound of the front door opening, and then his aunt and uncle started arguing fiercely. Harry ignored it to the best of his abilities, tracing the wall with his finger instead. It took longer than he had expected, but eventually the door was opened and he was yanked out of the confined space. 

“Suppose it’s getting a bit small for you. Reckon you ought to have Dudley’s second bedroom.” Harry nodded and thanked his uncle for the generosity even as the door of the room was slammed in his face. 

Harry sighed and got to work straightening the place. Most of the broken items fit into the closet or under the bed. A few items he placed around the room to make it less bare - a chest with a busted hinge at the foot of the bed, a lava lamp that flickered off and on if it was jostled at all on an amp that didn’t work. Books he carefully claimed for his storage ring. 

He was left alone most of the day. It wasn’t until Dudley came home and threw a hissy fit over learning that his second bedroom was being used by the freak that things started going bad. 

First it was Dudley, storming in and punching him for moving his stuff around. Harry’s attempt to explain he just wanted to make sure Dudleys stuff would be put away so that it had as little contact with him as possible was in vain. Dudley’s commotion brought the attention of Vernon, who proceeded to punish him for “stealing Dudley’s stuff, and tainting it with his freakishness.” 

By the time the man tired and left for bed, Harry was a solid bruise. Torn skin criss crossed his back, thighs, chest, and arms. He was also fairly sure he had a couple of broken ribs from Dudley kicking him once he had collapsed. 

He considered staying in for the night, letting the wounds heal some. In the end he sighed and pushed himself to his feet to sneak out of the house as normal - putting off the meeting would be worse than dealing with it, unless he never wanted to go back again. He did take his time though, letting the worst of the wounds scab over as he made his way to the park. 

Stars walked toward him as soon as he got close, instead of his normal habit of staying on the bench to put him at ease. Faen tensed and stopped moving, which seemed to snap the man back out of his immediate reaction and he paused a few feet from the boy. 

“What happened?” 

“My relatives decided I needed a bigger room. Dudley didn’t like the fact that I got his second bedroom very much is all.” The man growled, visibly fighting the urge to move closer to the skittish boy. Faen smiled weakly at him. 

“Shirt. Off.” Faen complied, not bothering to turn around. The front was plenty damaged. Stars sucked in a harsh breath. “I do not have enough medicine to take care of all this. Will you come with me Faen? I have more at the house.” They were both very still while Faen considered the request uneasily. 

“I have to be back before morning.” He said eventually. Stars frowned, but nodded, and collected the unopened bag of food on the bench before striding off. Faen trotted to keep up with the man's long legs, and it didn’t take them long to leave the part of the neighborhood Faen was familiar with. 

He watched the area with interest. It was far less upscale than the Dursely’s, but it was far from a poor area either. The house they eventually ended up at was a modest dwelling, two story, maybe three bedroom. The house was in good condition, though not nearly as fanatically neat as Petunia liked Number Four Privet Drive to be. 

The inside was similarly simple. The furniture didn’t match, but was good quality. There weren’t many personal effects, but the books on various surfaces still gave it a lived in feel. Stars ushered him to a couch in front of a fireplace before going up stairs, presumably to collect whatever potions he thought he needed. 

Faen could see that there was magic in the place, but most of the weaves were far too complex to work out what they did. He did stand up to investigate the pot that he was sure held flu powder, hoping that knowing what the magic did would make it easier to understand. It didn’t - it was even worse than the rest of the spells on the place, making his head hurt trying to follow the twisting path of the various threads. Some weren’t even attached to the powder itself, just trailing off into nothingness. He stood like that until he heard an exasperated noise from behind him and turned guiltily. 

“Come here you silly child. And take those rags your family calls clothes off so I can see what I have to work with.” The dry tone made Faen smile, and he complied without complaint. Gently, Stars tended to each cut, making sure they closed before moving to the next. Faen attempted to step back when the last one closed, only to look down in surprise when a firm hand against his back stopped him. Bruises were covered next, fading and disappearing as the man applied the potion. 

“These are broken.” He said, tracing around the swollen section of his side after the last of the bruises had cleared up. Faen nodded in acknowledgment. 

“I thought they might be. Dudley caught my side rather hard when he kicked me.” The man's jaw tightened, but he just stood to gather a bottle out of a bag. 

“Drink.” He held it out to the boy, who took the thing dubiously. He sniffed it experimentally and wrinkled his nose. It took a few more moments of gathering his courage before he chugged the thing, grimacing at the chalky coating the potion left in his mouth. 

For the first time that evening the Stars relaxed, guiding the boy to the couch and sitting next to him. Faen sat stiffly until gentle tugging brought him in against the man's side, where he too relaxed after a moment. He started when a fire burst into existence in the empty hearth, and Stars cursed under his breath. 

“I am sorry Faen, I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to warm it up a little in here.” Faen nodded, watching the flames. Stars paused, apparently expecting some sort of outburst or run of questions. When none came he summoned a blanket to wrap around the boy, who watched with interest. 

“That’s handy.” The man snorted at the observation. 

“You seem rather . . . unsurprised.” The comment was delicate, and Faen shrugged against his side, not sure how to answer the implied question. 

“My family doesn't like it when I make freakish things happen.” He finally settled on. Stars hummed acknowledgement, unsurprised but saddened by the answer. 

“It is not “freakish.” It is magic. I am a wizard, as are you.” This time it was Faens turn to nod. 

“They still don’t like it.”

“No, I don’t imagine they do. Magic is often unaccepted by those who cannot use it themselves. Never-the-less, it is a perfectly natural thing.” He paused, debating something. When he didn’t resume, Faen closed his eyes. 

“Yeah. I know. But it’s ok, I can handle it.”

“You do not have to handle it, Faen. I could arrange an adoption into a wizarding family if you will let me.” Faen shook his head, and the man sighed, obviously not expecting more than that. 

“I thought I might be able to leave when I was littler. But there’s reasons why I can’t, and it would cause a lot of problems for anyone who tried to change that. I’m ok, really. Thank you for always patching me up.” The man ran his fingers through Faens hair fondly. Faen sighed and drifted to sleep, not even stirring when he was lifted and carried to a bed, and then tucked in. 

Faen was up as early as ever the next morning. He inched the door of the bedroom he was in open carefully and slipping out to find his discarded clothes from the night before. He was halfway dressed when the sound of footsteps upstairs caused him to freeze, eyeing the stairs guiltily. 

Stars quickly found him when he made it downstairs, a scowl on his face. “What in god's name are you doing up at this unreasonable hour?” Faen shuffled his feet. 

“I have to be back before the sun rises. Making breakfast is my job.”

“Are you telling me you ALWAYS get up this early? Good lord child, you do not get enough sleep.” Faen bristled a bit. 

“I don’t need a lot of sleep.” Stars pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I’m not awake enough to argue with you. Let me get dressed and I’ll walk you back to the park.” He ignored Faens protests as he moved back up the stairs, and Faen was dismayed to find that the door was locked with a spell so he couldn’t slip out before he came back. Locking spells were apparently much more robust than tracking charms.

Stars smirked at the sulking boy by the door, obviously guessing his thought process. A quick word later and the two left the house, meandering the way they had come the night before. The pace was much less frenzied then previously, and Faen took the chance to carefully observe and memorize the path to the house for future reference. 

Faen made his way home after reaching the park, glad that Stars hadn’t tried a tracking charm this time.The extra time to break the tiny spell and lose Stars would have been a pain. He needed to work on getting his eyes green without using an illusion. And maybe change the length of his hair too - Harry Potter was supposed to have short hair, but it would be more obvious than he was comfortable with for Faen to suddenly have the same. At least the glasses he had remembered to get just after Dudley’s birthday.

He sighed and got to work. The problem seemed to be that his eyes matched his magic. If he wanted his eyes to go back to being green, he was going to need to make his magic green. It already had some color - maybe he could just pull all of that to the top? 

An hour or two of twiddling on his island turned the link between his magic and his eyes green. The plants were now more yellow then green, but that was ok. It would pass inspection as long as no-one thought to look too closely, and the glasses took care of that. 

He was rather pleased to find that this solution allowed him to still see magic. It wasn’t nearly as detailed, and he had to actively be trying to see it or it faded out of his awareness, but it was a definite improvement over the glamour. 

His hair was harder to figure out. Easiest would be a glamour of course, but that would defeat the whole point of the eyes. If he had been born a metamorphmagus it would have been even more simple, so long as he concentrated. That wasn’t an option though, which meant either relying on scissors and learning how to magically grow his hair out every time he wanted to be Faen, or somehow figuring out how to become a metamorphmagus. 

Actually . . . He frowned as he considered that. He had added magic to his head before. It wouldn’t be too hard to manipulate that magic, would it? He closed his eyes to focus, poking and prodding the magic bound into his every cell experimentally. It did seem to work the way he’d expect it to work, though figuring out what strand of magic affected what feature took much more work.

He was finished with a good fifteen minutes to spare. Petunia unlocked his cupboard with a sneer when she caught sight of his new hairdo and Harry crawled out to go make breakfast. Pancakes quickly stacked on a plate to take to the table along with scrambled eggs and bacon. Dudley was drawn by the scent of food, and Harry had to suppress the smirk that wanted to break out at the thought of his cousin gaining a pig tail in a couple of hours. 

First he had to make it through the hell that was dozens of letters forcing themselves into the house. Vernon was furious at the onslaught, and Harry ended up just as covered in bruises as he had been the night before, though without lacerations or broken bones this time. Petunia had shepherded Dudley off to pack, saying they were going to go on a little vacation, while Harry received his punishment for existing. 

He didn’t get a chance to pack anything, not that he really needed to, before being tossed in the car. The drive was long and painful, as Dudley took to jabbing him when he got bored. Harry trying to remain quite so as not to draw the attention of the adults amused him greatly. 

The little cabin in the middle of the tiny island was even more miserable than he had imagined it would be. Every breath of air caused the old wood to creak, it smelled stale as old bread, and what little paint it had was peeling and yellowed. It was dark, and rainy, and Dudly was complaining loudly about the whole ordeal which just led to more bruises for Harry. 

The family unpacked the car, and then Vernon spent some effort making sure Harry “Couldn’t get up to anything” while they left for dinner. The boy curled into a ball in the corner and hoped they wouldn’t bother him when they got back.

Luck was on his side. Vernon was drunk as a skunk and Petunia was too busy getting the whale of a man upstairs to the loft bed to be bothered with Harry. Dudley was much more inclined to play on a new hand-held gaming system they must have bought while out then to bother the lump in the corner. Eventually the three fell asleep, and Harry started counting down the minutes until midnight. 

BOOM.

That would be Hagrid. Dudley jerked awake, stupidly asking “Where’s the cannon?”

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands — now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.

“Who’s there?” he shouted. “I warn you — I’m armed!” There was a pause. Then —

SMASH!

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor. Hagrid stepped through the now doorless entry before turning to pick up the door and put it back in it’s frame. 

He turned to look at them all. “Couldn’t make us a cup o’ tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy journey…” He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear. “Budge up, yeh great lump,”

Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Vernon.

“An’ here’s Harry!” said the half-giant. Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile. “Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mom’s eyes.”

Vernon made a funny rasping noise. “I demand that you leave at once, sir!” he said. “You are breaking and entering!”

“Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,” Hagrid reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon’s hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room. Harry raised an eyebrow, impressed. 

Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

“Anyway — Harry,” Continued Hagrid, turning his back on the Dursleys, “a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.”From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box.

Harry opened it with a quiet thank you. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with  _ Happy Birthday Harry _ written on it in green icing. 

Hagrid chuckled, then continued his introduction. “I haven’t introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.” He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry’s whole arm.

“What about that tea then, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I’d not say no ter summat stronger if yeh’ve got it, mind.” Harry vaguely realized he was talking about alcohol, but was a little overwhelmed that this whole thing was actually HAPPENING. 

Harry jerked back to reality as the hearth burst into flame, much like it had at Star’s house. Hagrid seemed not to notice and started pulling random objects out of his pockets, including the alcohol he apparently wanted. A few moments later he had sausages roasting and tea heating up. 

“Don’t touch anything he gives you, Dudley.” Vernon snapped. 

Hagrid chuckled darkly. “Yer great puddin’ of a son don’ need fattenin’ anymore, Dursley, don’ worry.”

He passed the sausages to Harry, who took them with another thank you. God, how long had it been since he’d had proper meat? Years. Years and years. 

Hagrid took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Call me Hagrid,” he said, “everyone does. An’ like I told yeh, I’m Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts — yeh’ll know all about Hogwarts, o’ course.”

“I don’t.” Harry winced at the shocked expression. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. “It’ s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren’t gettin’ yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn’t even know abou’ Hogwarts, fer cryin’ out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?”

“Learned what?”

“Learned WHAT?” Hagrid thundered. “Now wait jus’ one second!”He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall. “Do you mean ter tell me,” he growled at the Dursleys, “that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin’ abou’ — about ANYTHING?”

Harry scowled. He knew quite a lot more than anyone would bother to give him credit for. Not being able to say as much was quite annoying. “I know some things.” He muttered petulantly. 

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, “About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents’ world.”

“What world?”

Hagrid was furious. “DURSLEY!”

Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like “Mimblewimble.”

Hagrid stared wildly at Harry. “But yeh must know about yer mom and dad,” he said. “I mean, they’re famous. You’re famous.”

“What? My parents weren’t famous, were they?” oh god, he sounded so very fake. It was good Hagrid was too angry to pay attention to his awful acting. He’d have to work on that.

“Yeh don’ know… yeh don’ know…” Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare. “Yeh don’ know what yeh are?” he said finally, looking rather forlorn. 

Vernon suddenly found his voice. “Stop!” he commanded. “Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!”

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage. “You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An’ you’ve kept it from him all these years?”

“Kept what from me?” Harry didn’t have to try very hard to feign interest, as nobody was really paying him any attention.

“STOP! I FORBID YOU!” yelled Vernon in panic. Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

“Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh,”said Hagrid. Harry suppressed a giggle. “Harry — yer a wizard.”

“I’m a what?” 

“A wizard, o’ course,” said Hagrid, sitting down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, “an’ a thumpin’ good’un, I’d say, once yeh’ve been trained up a bit. With a mum an’ dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An’ I reckon it’s abou’ time yeh read yer letter.”

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut on the Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:

_ HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY _

_ Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards) _

_ Dear Mr. Potter, _

_ We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. _

_ Yours sincerely, _

_ ~Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress _

In the meantime, Hagrid pulled from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl — a real, live, rather ruffled looking owl — a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:

_ Dear Professor Dumbledore, _

_ Given Harry his letter. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow. Weather’s horrible. Hope you’re well. _

_ ~Hagrid _

At this point Harry figured he could mostly tune out the rest of the conversation. Hagrid here, check. Letter received, check. Proper surprise and disbelief, check. Just get through some inane conversation about going to get school supplies in Diagon Alley tomorrow and he was all set. 

Content, Harry curled back up on the floor and fell asleep, ignoring the adults still arguing around him and forgetting entirely to wait to see Hagrid try to turn Dudley into a pig.

The next day Harry was a nervous wreck. The house of the wizard from the park was one thing, but a whole shopping district of magic and witches and wizards? He wasn’t sure if he was terrified of being found out or giddy with excitement over all the new things to study. He was practically vibrating when Hagrid led him into the Leaky Cauldron, though that changed rapidly when he was reminded that he was  _ Harry Potter. _

He flinched back from the mob of people wanting to shake his hand. It was so much worse then he had thought it would be, and he hadn’t been looking forward to it to start with. He bit back a whimper as Quirrel finally made his way through the crowd, knowing this would be the end for now. Quick pleasantries exchanged, he and Hagrid stepped into the Alley. 

Harry gaped. 

Oh yes. Oh this was  _ wonderful.  _ Even without being able to see details, the magic of the place was fascinating! He itched to go look in the window of every shop he passed, and only Hagrids hand on his back kept him moving. The clothing people wore, the items they held, all of it was woven with color and power. None of it made a bit of sense, but it didn’t make it any less beautiful to look at. 

Oh, and Gringotts! The whole place hummed! The goblins had interesting magic too - apparently the texture of a shield denoted a difference of species. Where a wizard's barrier was shiny and smooth, goblins had rugged barriers. And now that he was looking, Hagrids was a strange mix of smooth and heavy. How heavy was a texture Harry had no idea. 

Hagrid presented his key to the goblin teller as well as requesting access to the “you know what” in vault seven hundred and thirteen. Harry rolled his eyes. Subtle the half-giant was not. 

“How does this whole system even work anyway? I mean, carrying around a bag of coins seems kinda . . . cumbersome.” Harry took the chance to ask the goblin while Hagrid was busy trying not to be sick. “And why is the conversion rate so wonky? Also, what services does the bank provide other than storing things in vaults? Do you keep track of what is in the vaults, or do the customers mostly take care of that? How would one go about getting a goblin-made item loaned to them?” By the time the cart had arrived at Harry’s vault, the goblin looked just as happy for the trip to be over as Hagrid. 

On the other hand, Harry had learned that banks played mostly the same role as in the muggle world, gold was MUCH more common than non-magical folks assumed, a key could be used like a credit card, and he could apparently not afford a goblin made item so discussing them would be pointless. 

Harry was much less awed over his vault then he probably should have been, instead taking the opportunity to pass several (dozen) handfuls of gold into his ring while Hagrid scooped more into a pouch. Their goblin escort seemed both amused by his antics and confused by the gold vanishing into thin air. 

He also made sure to nick his key from Hagrid as soon as they were back in the cart and the man was distracted. That was met with approval from their escort.

By the time they left the bank Harry was a little more steady in the magical world and let the magic fade from sight. Hagrid dropped him off to get robes and then wandered off, leaving Harry to hurriedly buy clothes that were close enough to the correct size and then dash off to look around before the man got back, completely ignoring Draco Malfoy.

First was the bookshop. Magic items were fun, but learning about magic himself was a priority. He carefully loaded up everything he could find on runes, wards, enchanting, and potions, along with advanced texts on charms and transfigurations. Since he was there anyway he picked up his school books, and dealt with the amused expression of the shopkeeper who merely said “Ravenclaw?” Harry shrugged and stored his books as soon as he was out. 

He didn’t see Hagrid, so next he stopped by an Apothecary, where he bought a copper, iron, cast iron, and silver cauldron along with several kits of potions ingredients, vials, and a portable lab station. The kits he bought included the first year supplies, as well as a kit for first aide potions, a kit for pranks, and a kit for general household potions. That apparently included various cleaning supplies, shampoos, soaps, and similar. 

By this time Harry figured Hagrid was probably looking for him, but he’d really prefer to finish up on his own. It probably wouldn’t have hurt to just get his wand with the man, but he was nervous that he wouldn’t bond with the phoenix core wand he was supposed to. And really, the whole thing was nerve wracking even without a witness. So Harry avoided the tall man searching the street and entered Ollivanders. 

“I wondered when I’d be seeing you Mr. Potter.” Harry suppressed the instinctive flinch as the wandmaker popped up. “It seems only yesterday that your mother and father were in here buying their first wands.” He pulled a box off a shelf and handed it to Harry, who opened the thing cautiously while the old man watched. 

Feeling rather self conscious, he picked up the living wood, curious to see how it actually worked with his magic. Almost immediately a strand of internal magic flowed from the wand and into Harry’s magic-space, where it proceeded to try and jab a hole in his barrier.

Harry yelped and dropped the thing, jerking back. Ollivander narrowed his eyes as Harry watched the wand in disgust. “Not that one.” He muttered. Ollivander nodded and pulled down another box, handing it to the boy with an expression of contemplation. 

This wand was a different color and the magic was thinner than the first, but still tried to jab a hole in his nice clean shield. He hadn’t even bothered to pick this one up before backing away. “Do they ALL jab holes? I don’t care how useful wands are, I’m not touching them if they do.” He informed the wandmaker firmly. 

Ollivander studied him for a moment before wandering off without answering. Harry blinked, unsure whether he was supposed to wait, or if that was his cue to leave. He stood in indecision for several moments before the wandmaker returned with a dusty hinged wood box that had a golden lock. It was nothing at all like the rest of the place, and Harry found himself curious. 

The box was handed to him without a word after the lock was removed and Harry carefully lifted a pale green wand cautiously. The wand was still for several moments before a tendril of magic languidly extended to wrap around his shield, giving it a glittering gold coat. A second tendril of silver covered that, and the two sparked off each other in an endless generator. Harry smiled. 

“Curious . Very curious.” The boy glanced up at the old man. 

“Sorry. What’s curious?”

“It’s interesting that that wand should work for you Mr. Potter, as it’s always been useless. I did not make that wand - it’s been passed down through wandmakers for more generations than can be remembered.” Harry winced. Oops. Not the holly wand then. The man raised an eyebrow, but continued. “Legend says it’s made from the wood of the world tree yggdrasil and the core is the blood of a reaper. Of course, tales do tend to be exaggerated over time. Nevertheless, it’s true that it has opposing forces. Such a wand would generally cancel itself out. I do wonder what made it choose you.” He peered at the boy as though expecting him to have an answer. 

He didn’t know, but he certainly had a theory. He doubted it was the opposing forces that caused the lack of ability to use the wand. As far as he could see they didn’t have a negative reaction to each other at all. He thought it was more likely that most wizards didn’t have a set up that allowed their magic to by-pass their shields, so the wands were used to poke a hole, like a straw. This wand would probably work as a generator for any wizard, but it would be absolutely useless for spell casting since it wasn’t a straw. Technically it wasn’t a wand at all. 

But he didn’t need a straw. He could bypass his shield just fine, which meant he could use the generator and just do the spells wandlessly. He’d have to be careful to focus any visual effects on the tip of the wand, but otherwise this was a perfect solution. He smiled at Ollivander. 

“How much do I owe you?” The man was silent for several long minutes. Harry fidgeted, not at all comfortable with the scrutiny of the wandmaker. 

“Twenty Galleons.” Harry handed over the money hastily, along with another ten for an arm holster, before darting out the door and straight into Hagrid. 

“There ye are Harry! Shouln’ wander ‘round.” Harry apologized at the mild scolding, and Hagrid brightened. “Got ya something. Happy Birthday Harry.” He smiled down at the boy and handed him a cage with a snowy owl in it. 

“Thanks Hagrid. She’s beautiful.” Hagrid beamed, and Harry turned his attention to the bird. “Your name is Niveus, ok girl?” The owl didn’t complain, so he assumed it was acceptable. 

At this point they wandered off to finish the shopping. Harry still needed a trunk, and Hagrid was not at all convinced he had done any other shopping. He ended up with a second set of all his school books, robes, and potions supplies, though only one extra cauldron. Trunk shopping was delightful fun though. 

“I want one that’s blue and bigger on the inside.” He informed the shop assistant with a slightly maniacal grin. The man sighed. 

“Muggleborn?” 

“No. Muggle raised though.”

“Yes, alright. We’ve got the tardis series over in the back. The exact functions of each trunk are on the plack in front of them.” Harry thanked him and skipped off to find the one he wanted. 

In the end he bought a trunk made of leviathan hide. It had wheels and was upright instead of elongated like many, which helped with his fanboying over Dr. Who. It only had one compartment, but it opened like the doors of a phone booth and he could duck into it to enter a room lined with shelves along one side and two doors on each of the other sides. It was password locked, and had an additional lock he could key to an item if he wished. 

The back doors led to a bedroom and a fairly nice bathroom. He had a wardrobe, a dresser, a side table, and a bed. The bathroom had a wonderful tub that also served as a shower, along with the expected toilet and sink. 

The side doors led to a space that could be set up as a work room, study, storage, or whatever he’d like, and a kitchen. The kitchen was very simple - a small oven, counterspace with cupboards, and a two-top stove. The workroom he decided he was going to put his potion lab in once he got the chance. 

Hagrid didn’t seem to pay much attention to Harry’s purchase, but the clerk seemed like he was about to dance a happy little jig at the sale. Harry quite carefully did NOT think about how much money he just spent on a trunk and went to tell Hagrid that he was done. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter, and sections of this chapter were taken directly from the first book.


	5. Hogwarts

When Harry arrived home he immediately made himself scarce in his room. He hummed as he went to his ringspace, and then his trunk to organize. 

Books went on the shelves, organized by subject and then by difficulty. Muggle books he’d collected over the years were lumped together - he'd get around to sorting those properly when he had a decent library space. Clothes went into his wardrobe or dresser respectively, pilfered galleons in the side table, and toiletries into the bathroom. That only consisted of toilet paper he smuggled out of the house's bathroom and a bar of soap for now, but it was a start. 

The kitchen he didn’t bother with - he needed to go shopping in the muggle world to get that properly outfitted. The lab took a few minutes of fiddling to set up, but seemed pretty straightforward. Five burners where he placed his cauldrons, and cabinets underneath to store his vials and ingredients. It also had a scale in the center, and a drawer along one side with various tools for ingredient preparations. 

All in all, he basically had his own home. He hummed the whole time he was organizing, and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading through his new books. It was a very happy Harry who made dinner that night, and the Dursleys mostly left him alone on top of it. 

On the other hand, Stars was very displeased when he made it to the park that night. 

“You didn’t come yesterday.” The scowl was evident in his voice and Faen rubbed an arm sheepishly. 

“My family decided to go on a trip. Normally they leave me behind, but the babysitter cancelled last minute so they had to take me. Sorry.” The man glared at him another moment or two before relaxing. 

“I am glad you are alright. I was worried you had gotten in trouble after spending the night.” Faen winced. He hadn’t thought about what it must have looked like, vanishing after such a severe beating. 

“Sorry.” 

“These things happen. You are safe, which is the important thing.” Faen nodded. “May I hug you?” Another nod, and then the man was crouching and gently pulling him close. Faen sighed in contentment and hugged him back, glad to be back for all that the magic of Diagon Alley had been fun. He would miss this when he went to Hogwarts. 

Eventually Faen pulled back and they made their way to their normal bench. The boy chatted about the car ride and the strange little shack they had ended up in and how his family was so appalled by the state of the place they turned back the next day. 

He was left mostly alone by the Dursleys over the next two weeks. A quick shopping trip gave his trunk basic toiletries, stocked the kitchen, a kitchen table with chairs, and a basic second-hand living room set-up. As it got closer to September though, Faen became morose. Without the beatings, being at Number Four Privet Drive was nice. He got to work on his garden, visit Stars every evening, and didn’t have to stress about getting his chores done. He still did them, but it was no longer a source of frantic obsession. 

Stars, too, seemed to tense as the days passed. Faen watched him curiously for a few days before growing tired of the man’s behavior and confronting him about it. 

“I have to work most of the year.” Was the answer. Faen blinked. “I won’t be here very much longer, and won’t be back until late next spring, early summer.” Faen ignored the warning bells trying to catch his attention in the back of his head and nodded. 

“I see.” They lapsed into silence, and passed the rest of their time together with an air of melancholy. 

September first Harry was up earlier than ever. He made sure breakfast for the Dursleys was perfect - bacon and hashbrowns and waffles and eggs. He cleaned the kitchen, straightened anything out of place, and fussed over the garden. His diligence seemed to please Vernon, who didn’t complain about needing to take him to the train station. Either that or he was still frightened of wizards coming to turn him into something unpleasant. 

“Platform 9&¾ . . .ha, found it!” Harry mumbled to himself. A quick glance around showed the Weasleys weren’t there yet, and Harry debated waiting or not. After a moment he shrugged and stepped through the barrier - he’d probably meet Ron on the train anyway. 

He was earlier than he’d expected. While the station was busy, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it could have been. A few curious glances were thrown his way, but the adults present seemed content to fawn over their own offspring and the children were mostly trying to avoid the smothering. Harry snickered at the sight of Draco complaining to his mother about her fussing with his hair. 

He wandered the train for a bit, quickly finding an empty compartment. Another minute and he had his luggage out of his ring and stored in the overhead compartment, his first year transfiguration and charms books on the seat next to him, and his nose in his potions book. Professor Snape may not like Harry Potter, but Harry was going to enjoy potions anyway. 

He vaguely heard the compartment door open and close a couple of times, but no-one actually entered. He looked up in mild surprise when the train started moving - Ron apparently hadn’t found him after all. He shrugged and went back to reading with half an ear listening for the door signaling Hermione helping Neville find his toad. 

The trolly passed and he finished potions and was halfway through charms when the bushy haired girl finally appeared. “Have you seen a toad? Nevilles lost his.” Harry looked up at her. 

“I haven’t. Have you tried asking one of the older students to summon it?” Hermione blinked. 

“No, I’ve just been asking if they’ve seen it. That’s a good idea. Come on Neville.” Harry stopped her before she closed the door. 

“Do you two want to join me when you find the toad?” Both of the students in the hall seemed surprised and pleased by the invitation and nodded before wandering off to find someone to summon Trevor. 

It didn’t take long for the two to return, Neville quite happily holding Trevor. “Hey, I’m glad you came back. I’m Harry.” He held out his hand to each of them who introduced themselves in turn. “What classes are you looking forward to most?”

“I’ve always liked herbology.” That was Neville, and Harry smiled at him. 

“I like plants too, though I prefer ones with practical applications, like for food. I’m looking forward to learning how to use them in potions.” Neville smiled and nodded. 

“I’m excited about everything. Transfiguration is just fascinating, as are charms. I’m also looking forward to being able to take ancient runes in third year. What House do you think you’ll be in?” Harry mulled this question over for a bit before answering. 

“I’d like to be in Ravenclaw, or maybe Slytherin, but I’m probably going to end up in Gryffindor." Neville looked horrified. 

“But Slythirens are evil!” He blurted before flushing and dropping his gaze. Harry smiled at him. 

“Of course they aren’t. Ambition doesn’t mean evil! I mean, we’d never have doctors who learned how to heal new things, or Aurors to protect us, or writers to educate us if it was. And think of what a good, ambitious, intelligent slytherin could accomplish! Especially with all these silly prejudices against magical creatures and non-purebloods in general. All of the houses have good points anyway. I mean, I know hufflepuff has a bad reputation too, but I think having the drive to work hard is admirable. Hard work trumps talent every time. And it’s silly that gryffindors are considered the loyal ones when that’s traditionally part of Hufflepuff.” Neville didn’t seem to have a response, so he turned to Hermione. 

“Well, maybe, but Gryffindor is the best house. That’s the house of the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who is the greatest wizard of the age!” Harry snorted at her tone. 

“One wizard does not a great house make. Anyway, I think it’s more fun to be with people I like then with people who only go somewhere to be popular or something.” And now Hermione was also silent. Harry changed the subject back to classes and they continued in that vein until the train arrived. 

Hagrid called over all the first years, and Harry, Hermione, and Neville climbed into a boat, continuing to chat. Harry only broke off the conversation when the castle came into sight. 

Magic had never failed to amaze him, and Hogwarts didn’t fail to either. The building itself was magnificent, even larger than he had pictured. Focusing on the magic of the place, Harry was fascinated to find that it seemed to work very similar to his rings. The wards around the school kept the ambient magic from leaving, though the amount still decreased as the wards seemed to be a significant drain. They also were obviously keyed for certain people, though he wasn’t sure how it knew who to accept and who not to. As the students approached he could see tendrils focusing on them briefly before being swept back into the chaos. 

Hermione eventually gave up trying to get his attention as they made their way into the castle and to the great hall. Harry was much too busy looking at everything to notice the girl. Paintings didn’t have a core at all - they were a spell that was much too complex for him to decipher. Or maybe a series of spells. Some of them seemed to be almost simulating life via the spells, but were much too rigid to do more than what the spells allowed. 

The ghosts made him shiver. They didn’t have any internal magic at all, external magic taking its place in a sort of quicksand effect. Pure will was all that kept them from falling entirely apart. More than ever he wished he could see past the barrier of living wizards and witches - the ghost islands seemed to imply that they were unique to each person, but they were in such a constant state of collapse that he couldn’t be sure. 

His study was interrupted by the doors being thrown open and the first years made their way to the front of the room to be sorted. Harry started in shock when Hermione was sorted into Slytherin, and winced guiltily when Neville went to Hufflepuff. Oops. He hadn’t thought his argument for each of the houses would have that big of an effect on his fellow first years. Oh, and he was really going to need to keep an eye on Hermione - bad enough to be muggleborn. Horrible to be muggleborn in Slytherin!

The hall went silent when his name was called. He ignored it with force of will and made his way to the tattered old hat. 

_ Hello.  _

_ Well now. Aren’t you an interesting one?  _

_ Mmm. Things are a little weird. Gryffindor please. _

_ Yes, you do seem set on that. It’s really not a good fit for you, you know. Sure you won’t reconsider? Ravenclaw would be best, or Slytherin. Even Hufflepuff would be a better fit. _

_ No. _

_ Gryffindor isn’t going to be a good fit.  _

_ I’m aware. I need to be in Gryffindor though. Slytherin would gain me too much scrutiny, as would Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff might be fine, but I would be discounted and unable to leverage as much influence.  _

_ Very Slytherin thinking.  _

_ I KNOW already. Though, you really shouldn’t be surprised. I’m hardly a normal eleven year old.  _

_ That’s true. I am here to sort children, and I don’t suppose you qualify as that. In which case, the choice really should be in your hands. Very well. As you wish, better be _

**“Gryffindor!”**

Harry carefully removed the hat and went to join the boisterously cheering red-and-gold table with a weak smile. Damn. And he’d managed to get Hermione and Neville sorted elsewhere too. This was going to suck. Maybe the twins would let him tag along. 

The hall quieted as the sorting finished and the headmaster stood for announcements. Stay out of the forest, avoid the third floor - Harry snorted to himself, having less than no intention of doing so - here’s the new professor, random words to signal the feast. 

Harry took the excitement of food appearing as a chance to study the head table, and Quirrell in particular. The poor man's magic was patchy yellow, magic being drawn out slowly by the burnt-orange-red latching onto it like mold. Harry wrinkled his nose, about to turn to study Dumbledore when the man behind Quirrell grabbed his attention. 

Harry paled, horror flickering over his features before he dropped his gaze and focused on the food in front of him mechanically. Oh, Stars was going to  _ kill _ him. Because he was Harry Potter. And Stars was Severous Snape. 

He was almost sure the man had caught his expression, and hoped he would write it off as “Prince Potter” having been told tales of the “Greasy Git”. Oh god. No wonder the man wasn’t going to be there during the school year. Suddenly those alarm bells made sense. Harry absently passed a tray of chicken down the table at someone's prodding, mostly ignoring the conversations around him. 

Dinner passed in a bit of a blur. He never had gotten around to studying the headmaster's magic, but was too worried to care about that for the moment. He followed Percy to the Gryffindor tower while Ron chatted to him about quidditch. He slipped off to bed as early as possible to try and figure out how he was going to deal with the problems he’d already managed to cause.

Neville should be fine in Hufflepuff, but his grandmother was going to be an issue for the poor boy. Maybe he should send her a letter - if Harry Potter said it was a good thing, she might back off a bit. And maybe he could convince her to get Neville a proper wand while he was at it. 

Hermione . . . He didn’t know what to do about that. It was the one house where his status as the Boy-Who-Lived would have a detrimental effect if he tried to interfere. He chewed his lip for a bit, thinking. Maybe . . . maybe he could give her a set up like his. A ring with a trunk - or maybe a tent would be better. If he got a decent one she’d have room to invite friends if she wanted to. Then her possessions would be safe at least, and if she needed somewhere to sleep and take care of herself she’d have that option too. He nodded to himself - yes, that would do nicely. He’d make a ring tomorrow. Too bad he hadn’t thought to stock wood in his trunk or he could get it done tonight. 

And he’d ask St - Snape to keep an eye on her too. He might hate Harry, but surely he wouldn’t take it out on Hermione? He’d just make sure the professor knew she was a muggleborn. And maybe ask if there was some sort of protective jewelry he’d recommend that Harry could get or make for her. 

And he’d have to make sure not to meet the man's eyes. He didn’t know if he’d try legilimency on his nemesis’s son, but it wasn’t worth the risk. At least potions class was first! If he got the ring done before breakfast he could give it to Hermione in class and then have a tent sent to her via owl-order. 

Plan made, Harry sank into his island space until he could sleep. It passively accumulated magic at a decent rate by now, especially with his new wand, and the dense environment of Hogwarts helped even more. His external magic stores were comfortable filled even with the drain of light in his ring spaces. It would be nice to use the mist that was blanketing the area like a cloud to expand his island and increase his stores, but he’d need to save it to make Hermione’s ring. 

Instead, he decided to study the coconut. It sort of matched the parasyte dark lord leeching off of the defence professor in color, but where that one was soft and vampiric, this section was just glass, all tiny jagged edges lined with shiny silver. He wasn’t sure why the parasite had that orange aspect. The lining was interesting - it was too little to be noticed unless you were looking closely. It almost made the red seem like paint over top. 

And actually, now that he thought about it, did the fact that Voldemort's soul shard was in his island space mean this space was Harry’s soul? He’d assumed it was a magic core of some sort, but it would make sense for it to be his soul too he supposed. Though, that meant that even dirt had a soul, even if it wasn’t as developed as more advanced things. 

He considered the little ball contemplatively. If he went with the assumption that the red covering the silver was some sort of stain of dark magic, or possibly insanity, then maybe he could flake it off. Harry chewed his lip while staring into nothingness. Afterall, if he could make the Dark Lord sane and not-evil, that could be really useful. He had been known as charismatic and brilliant in school, but as Voldemort he had been out of control and idiotic. 

Well, it wouldn't hurt to try. Harry shrugged and collected a bit of external magic to mold into a knife. 

He carefully pulled back some of the shielding around the little ball so he could reach in with his magic knife. He still didn’t want to touch it, or have it touch his internal magic, but he did need to be able to reach in to try and pick at the red. 

It was very slow going. Harry was afraid of damaging the silver, so he was very careful to use the tip of the knife along the edge where the silver was just barely visible. Once he had the tip under a bit of red he would gently lever it up, letting the tiny flake fall to the bottom of the shield it was encased in. He had only managed to clear a bare inch of surface space before it was time to sleep so he could handle his other tasks tomorrow. 

He slipped out of the dorm long before the other boys were stirring, but late enough that he hopefully wouldn’t get in trouble if he was caught wandering. The halls were quiet and he made his way outside without running into anyone, not even the caretaker's cat. He was a bit nervous about crossing the grounds to reach the edge of the forest, but no shouts were raised and it only took a few minutes to find an acceptably large branch. 

Wood in hand, he found a quiet corner outside and stepped into his ring space. Glancing around he winced - the garden was getting out of control again. He really needed to figure out a way to siphon the extra magic out of the air and either store it or learn how to extend this space at a faster rate. He was sure the chicken area was just as bad. 

Stepping determinedly through his trunk and ignoring the plants he wandered to his lab to grab a carving knife which he then brought back to the garden. Whittling a section into a ring didn’t take too long, though he made sure to keep it large enough that she wouldn’t outgrow it too quickly. He had no idea how to resize these things yet after all. 

Base completed, he paused. He’d been adding his own blood to bind the magic to the ring - would he need to use Hermione's blood instead? It seemed like nobody else could see his own space, and that was probably linked to the fact that he used his blood. But no, maybe as well as, not instead of. If that didn’t work he’d just make a new ring for her. 

Space complete he exited his own ring and entered hers, quickly adding dirt and grass seeds to the area. A couple of weeks and she’d have a nice little yard to set up her tent in. He set up the lights to obey the command “Lumos” for on and “nox” for off, so she wouldn’t have to always be in the day or always in the dark. The drain was a bit annoying and he again resolved to figure out how to use the ambient magic in the rings to better effect. 

Hermione's space set up he went back to his trunk to pen a letter to Neville's grandmother. He probably wouldn’t be in time to fend off any mail that might arrive this morning, but hopefully it would help in the future. 

_ Mrs. Longbottom, _

_ Hello. My name is Harry Potter, and I am writing to you as a friend of your grandson, Neville. We became friends on the train and discussed the house system, and he mentioned how much he wanted to be in gryffindor like his parents, and to make you proud.  _

_ My other friend from the train is named Hermione Granger. She is muggleborn, and was determined to go to gryffindor. After talking to them both about how all the houses had good points, she instead decided to go to Slytherin. As you can imagine, that is not an easy thing to do. Sometimes being sorted into a house despite what other people think is far braver than being sorted into the house of the brave.  _

_ Please don’t give Neville a hard time. He’s a wonderful boy, and very talented, but is so terrified of disappointing you and his parents that he ends up making mistakes which makes him seem far weaker than he actually is. I am honored to know him, and to know that I have such a good friend that he was sorted into the house of the loyal. He will never fail to do his best, and I intend to support him as much as I know he will support me. I hope you choose to do the same.  _

_ On a similar note, Neville's wand doesn’t fit him at all. Inheritance is great, but Neville is his own person. Let him keep his father's wand as a secondary, but please take him to get a proper wand. He has enough self-esteem issues without a poorly matched wand making it worse.  _

_ Thank you for your time,  _

_ Harry Potter _

Satisfied with the letter, Harry made his way to the owlery to find Niveus so she could deliver the letter along with an order for a tent to go to Hermione, and then made his way to the great hall to get breakfast. 


End file.
